The decontamination of certain contaminated environments has proven to be especially problematic. In particular, where contamination levels or physical configuration of the environment make conventional access impractical, removal of those dust particles can be difficult. For example, in nuclear laboratories and the nuclear power and nuclear weapons manufacturing industries, the generation of radioactive dust has led to severe contamination problems. Often entire rooms or systems of ventilation equipment including ducts contaminated with radioactive dust have had to be sealed because no practical method of decontamination was known. In some instances, entire buildings have been sealed and condemned in place because contamination prevents the destruction of the building. Once an environment has been sealed, the particles tend to fall out of the atmosphere and deposit on the surfaces of the floors and walls of the closed environment. However, the slightest disturbance of the atmosphere of the closed environment can result in resuspension of the particulates which will tend to float freely within the atmosphere. Conventional contamination control methods have been unable to effectively control such contaminants. Such a result is often unacceptable, especially if the particulates contain a highly hazardous radioactive material such as plutonium.
Attempts to decontaminate, maintain, and even enter many of these types of areas have resulted in the resuspension of the contaminants. This resuspension can lead to an airborne hazard for humans, resulting in an uptake of the hazardous material.